Download or read book Geoengineering Our Climate written by Jason J. Blackstock and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Climate Geoengineering Science Law and Governance written by Wil Burns and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-05 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sobering reality of the disconnect between the resolve of the world community to effectively address climate change, and what actually needs to be done, has led to increasing impetus for consideration of a suite of approaches collectively known as “climate geoengineering,” or “climate engineering.” Indeed, the feckless response of the world community to climate change has transformed climate geoengineering from a fringe concept to a potentially mainstream policy option within the past decade. This volume will explore scientific, political and legal issues associated with the emerging field of climate geoengineering. The volume encompasses perspectives on both of the major categories of climate geoengineering approaches, carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management.
Download or read book A Case for Climate Engineering written by David Keith and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-09-20 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading scientist argues that we must consider deploying climate engineering technology to slow the pace of global warming. Climate engineering—which could slow the pace of global warming by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere—has emerged in recent years as an extremely controversial technology. And for good reason: it carries unknown risks and it may undermine commitments to conserving energy. Some critics also view it as an immoral human breach of the natural world. The latter objection, David Keith argues in A Scientist's Case for Climate Engineering, is groundless; we have been using technology to alter our environment for years. But he agrees that there are large issues at stake. A leading scientist long concerned about climate change, Keith offers no naïve proposal for an easy fix to what is perhaps the most challenging question of our time; climate engineering is no silver bullet. But he argues that after decades during which very little progress has been made in reducing carbon emissions we must put this technology on the table and consider it responsibly. That doesn't mean we will deploy it, and it doesn't mean that we can abandon efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But we must understand fully what research needs to be done and how the technology might be designed and used. This book provides a clear and accessible overview of what the costs and risks might be, and how climate engineering might fit into a larger program for managing climate change.
Download or read book Geoengineering the Climate written by Royal Society (Great Britain) and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Royal Society has published the findings of a major study into geoengineering the climate. The study, chaired by Professor John Shepherd FRS, was researched and written over a period of twelve months by twelve leading academics representing science, economics, law and social science. Man-made climate change is happening and its impacts and costs will be large, serious and unevenly spread. The impacts may be reduced by adaptation and moderated by mitigation, especially by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. However, global efforts to reduce emissions have not yet been sufficiently successful to provide confidence that the reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change will be achieved. This has led to growing interest in geoengineering, defined here as the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change. However, despite this interest, there has been a lack of accessible, high quality information on the proposed geoengineering techniques which remain unproven and potentially dangerous. This study provides a detailed assessment of the various methods and considers the potential efficiency and unintended consequences they may pose. It divides geoengineering methods into two basic categories: 1. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques, which remove CO2 from the atmosphere. As they address the root cause of climate change, rising CO2 concentrations, they have relatively low uncertainties and risks. However, these techniques work slowly to reduce global temperatures. 2. Solar Radiation Management (SRM) techniques, which reflect a small percentage of the sun's light and heat back into space. These methods act quickly, and so may represent the only way to lower global temperatures quickly in the event of a climate crisis. However, they only reduce some, but not all, effects of climate change, while possibly creating other problems . They also do not affect CO2 levels and therefore fail to address the wider effects of rising CO2, including ocean acidification. The report recommends: Parties to the UNFCCC should make increased efforts towards mitigating and adapting to climate change and in particular to agreeing to global emissions reductions of at least 50% on 1990 levels by 2050 and more thereafter; CDR and SRM geoengineering methods should only be considered as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change. CDR methods should be regarded as preferable to SRM methods. Relevant UK government departments, in association with the UK Research Councils, should together fund a 10 year geoengineering research programme at a level of the order of £10M per annum. The Royal Society, in collaboration with international science partners, should develop a code of practice for geoengineering research and provide recommendations to the international scientific community for a voluntary research governance framework. The Royal Society issued a call for submissions and convened a small ethics workshop as part of the evidence gathering process. More information is available in the main report.
Download or read book After Geoengineering written by Holly Jean Buck and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate engineering is a dystopian project. But as the human species hurtles ever faster towards its own extinction, geoengineering as a temporary fix, to buy time for carbon removal, is a seductive idea. We are right to fear that geoengineering will be used to maintain the status quo, but is there another possible future after geoengineering? Can these technologies and practices be used to bring carbon levels back down to pre-industrial levels? Are there possibilities for massive intentional intervention in the climate that are democratic, decentralised, or participatory? These questions are provocative, because they go against a binary that has become common sense: geoengineering is assumed to be on the side of industrial agriculture, inequality and ecomodernism, in opposition to degrowth, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and climate justice. After Geoengineering rejects this binary, to ask: what if the people seized the means of climate production? Both critical and utopian, the book examines the possible futures after geoengineering. Rejecting the idea that geoengineering is some kind of easy work-around, Holly Buck outlines the kind of social transformation that would be necessary to enact a programme of geoengineering in the first place.
Download or read book Geoengineering written by Gernot Wagner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-09-08 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stabilizing the world’s climates means cutting carbon dioxide pollution. There’s no way around it. But what if that’s not enough? What if it’s too difficult to accomplish in the time allotted or, worse, what if it’s so late in the game that even cutting carbon emissions to zero, tomorrow, wouldn’t do? Enter solar geoengineering. The principle is simple: attempt to cool Earth by reflecting more sunlight back into space. The primary mechanism, shooting particles into the upper atmosphere, implies more pollution, not less. If that doesn’t sound scary, it should. There are lots of risks, unknowns, and unknowables. In Geoengineering: The Gamble, climate economist Gernot Wagner provides a balanced take on the possible benefits and all-too-real risks, especially the so-called “moral hazard” that researching or even just discussing (solar) geoengineering would undermine the push to cut carbon emissions in the first place. Despite those risks, he argues, solar geoengineering may only be a matter of time. Not if, but when. As the founding executive director of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, Wagner explores scenarios of a geoengineered future, offering an inside-view of the research already under way and the actions the world must take to guide it in a productive direction.
Download or read book Climate Engineering and the Law written by Michael B. Gerrard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to focus on the legal aspects of climate engineering, making recommendations for future laws and governance.
Download or read book The Governance of Solar Geoengineering written by Jesse L. Reynolds and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solar geoengineering could reduce climate change, but poses risks. This volume explores how it is, could, and should be governed.
Download or read book Climate Intervention written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growing problem of changing environmental conditions caused by climate destabilization is well recognized as one of the defining issues of our time. The root problem is greenhouse gas emissions, and the fundamental solution is curbing those emissions. Climate geoengineering has often been considered to be a "last-ditch" response to climate change, to be used only if climate change damage should produce extreme hardship. Although the likelihood of eventually needing to resort to these efforts grows with every year of inaction on emissions control, there is a lack of information on these ways of potentially intervening in the climate system. As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses albedo modification - changing the fraction of incoming solar radiation that reaches the surface. This approach would deliberately modify the energy budget of Earth to produce a cooling designed to compensate for some of the effects of warming associated with greenhouse gas increases. The prospect of large-scale albedo modification raises political and governance issues at national and global levels, as well as ethical concerns. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth discusses some of the social, political, and legal issues surrounding these proposed techniques. It is far easier to modify Earth's albedo than to determine whether it should be done or what the consequences might be of such an action. One serious concern is that such an action could be unilaterally undertaken by a small nation or smaller entity for its own benefit without international sanction and regardless of international consequences. Transparency in discussing this subject is critical. In the spirit of that transparency, Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth was based on peer-reviewed literature and the judgments of the authoring committee; no new research was done as part of this study and all data and information used are from entirely open sources. By helping to bring light to this topic area, this book will help leaders to be far more knowledgeable about the consequences of albedo modification approaches before they face a decision whether or not to use them.
Download or read book How to Cool the Planet written by Jeff Goodell and published by HMH. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Thoughtful, informative, and darkly entertaining. It’s the best treatment of this important (and scary) topic you can find.” —Elizabeth Kolbert Right now, a group of scientists is working on ways to minimize the catastrophic impact of global warming. But they’re not designing hybrids or fuel cells or wind turbines. They’re trying to lower the temperature of the entire planet. And they’re doing it with huge contraptions that suck CO2 from the air, machines that brighten clouds and deflect sunlight away from the earth, even artificial volcanoes that spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere. This is the radical and controversial world of geoengineering, which only five years ago was considered to be “fringe.” But as Jeff Goodell points out, the economic crisis, combined with global political realities, is making these ideas look sane, even inspired. Goodell himself started out as a skeptic, concerned about tinkering with the planet’s thermostat. We can’t even predict next week’s weather, so how are we going to change the temperature of whole regions? What if a wealthy entrepreneur shoots particles into the stratosphere on his own? Who gets blamed if something goes terribly wrong? And perhaps most disturbing, what about wars waged with climate control as the primary weapon? There are certainly risks, but Goodell believes the alternatives could be worse. In the end, he persuades us that geoengineering may just be our last best hope—a Plan B for the environment. His compelling tale of scientific hubris and technical daring is sure to jump-start the next big debate about the future of life on earth. “Goodell explores with infectious curiosity and thoughtful narration this strange, promising, and untested suite of climate fixes.” —BusinessWeek “A quick, enjoyable read through a complex, timely topic. And after you read it, you’ll never look at the sky or the ocean—or Earth, really—in quite the same way again.” —The Christian Science Monitor
Download or read book Systems Thinking for Geoengineering Policy written by Robert Chris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even by the scientists most closely associated with it, geoengineering – the deliberate intervention in the climate at global scale to mitigate the effects of climate change – is perceived to be risky. For all its potential benefits, there are robust differences of opinion over the wisdom of such an intervention. Systems Thinking for Geoengineering Policy is the first book to theorise geoengineering in terms of complex adaptive systems theory and to argue for the theoretical imperative of adaptive management as the default methodology for an effective low risk means of confronting the inescapable uncertainty and surprise that characterise potential climate futures. The book illustrates how a shift from the conventional Enlightenment paradigm of linear reductionist thinking, in favour of systems thinking, would promote policies that are robust against the widest range of plausible futures rather than optimal only for the most likely, and also unlock the policy paralysis caused by making long term predictions of policy outcomes a prior condition for policy formulation. It also offers some systems driven reflections on a global governance network for geoengineering. This book is a valuable resource for all those with an interest in climate change policy, geoengineering, and CAS theory, including academics, under- and postgraduate students and policymakers.
Download or read book Climate Change Geoengineering written by Wil C. G. Burns and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-22 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, eleven prominent authorities on climate change consider the legal, policy, and philosophical issues presented by geoengineering. The book asks: When, if ever, are decisions to embark on potentially risky climate modification projects justified? If such decisions can be justified, in a world without a central governing authority, who should authorize such projects and by what moral and legal right?
Download or read book Geoengineering Earth s Climate written by Jennifer Swanson and published by Twenty-First Century Books ™. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most scientists agree that Earth is warming rapidly. Glaciers are melting and rising seawaters are submerging islands and coastal cities. In the coming decades, millions will likely have to escape extreme weather caused by climate change. Some scientists say we need to act faster and with radical new technologies—now—to save our planet. They propose geoengineering, or "engineering Earth," to reset our global thermostat. Ideas include thickening clouds with chemicals to reduce the amount of sunlight and pulling carbon dioxide from the air with machines. However, critics say that geoengineering could backfire and create even worse weather. Is geoengineering too risky? Or is it our best hope of survival?
Download or read book Has It Come to This written by J.P. Sapinski and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system in an attempt to mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. Now that a climate emergency is upon us, claims that geoengineering is inevitable are rapidly proliferating. How did we get into this? What options make it onto the table? Which are left out? Whom does geoengineering serve? These are some of the questions that the thinkers contributing to this volume are exploring.
Download or read book Climate Justice and Geoengineering written by Christopher J. Preston and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-09-21 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is already clear that climate engineering raises numerous troubling ethical issues. The pertinent question yet to be addressed is how the ethical issues raised by climate engineering compare to those raised by alternative proposals for tackling climate change. This volume is the first to put the ethical issues raised by climate engineering into a comprehensive, comparative context so that the key ethical challenges of these technologies can be better measured against those of alternative climate policies . Addressing the topic specifically through the lens of justice, contributors include both advocates of climate intervention research and its sceptics. The volume includes a helpful blend of the theoretical and the practical, with contributions from authors in philosophy, engineering, public policy, social science, geography, sustainable development studies, economics, and climate studies. This cross-disciplinary collection provides the start of an important and more contextualized “second generation” analysis of climate engineering and the difficult public policy decisions that lie ahead.
Download or read book Climate Shock written by Gernot Wagner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How knowing the extreme risks of climate change can help us prepare for an uncertain future If you had a 10 percent chance of having a fatal car accident, you'd take necessary precautions. If your finances had a 10 percent chance of suffering a severe loss, you'd reevaluate your assets. So if we know the world is warming and there's a 10 percent chance this might eventually lead to a catastrophe beyond anything we could imagine, why aren't we doing more about climate change right now? We insure our lives against an uncertain future—why not our planet? In Climate Shock, Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater. A rogue nation might shoot particles into the Earth's atmosphere, geoengineering cooler temperatures. Zeroing in on the unknown extreme risks that may yet dwarf all else, the authors look at how economic forces that make sensible climate policies difficult to enact, make radical would-be fixes like geoengineering all the more probable. What we know about climate change is alarming enough. What we don't know about the extreme risks could be far more dangerous. Wagner and Weitzman help readers understand that we need to think about climate change in the same way that we think about insurance—as a risk management problem, only here on a global scale. With a new preface addressing recent developments Wagner and Weitzman demonstrate that climate change can and should be dealt with—and what could happen if we don't do so—tackling the defining environmental and public policy issue of our time.
Download or read book Engineering the Climate written by Christopher J. Preston and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-06-28 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management discusses the ethical issues associated with deliberately engineering a cooler climate to combat global warming. Climate engineering (also known as geoengineering) has recently experienced a surge of interest given the growing likelihood that the global community will fail to limit the temperature increases associated with greenhouse gases to safe levels. Deliberate manipulation of solar radiation to combat climate change is an exciting and hopeful technical prospect, promising great benefits to those who are in line to suffer most through climate change. At the same time, the prospect of geoengineering creates huge controversy. Taking intentional control of earth’s climate would be an unprecedented step in environmental management, raising a number of difficult ethical questions. One particular form of geoengineering, solar radiation management (SRM), is known to be relatively cheap and capable of bringing down global temperatures very rapidly. However, the complexity of the climate system creates considerable uncertainty about the precise nature of SRM’s effects in different regions. The ethical issues raised by the prospect of SRM are both complex and thorny. They include: 1) the uncertainty of SRM’s effects on precipitation patterns, 2) the challenge of proper global participation in decision-making, 3) the legitimacy of intentionally manipulating the global climate system in the first place, 4) the potential to sidestep the issue of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, and, 5) the lasting effects on future generations. It has been widely acknowledged that a sustained and scholarly treatment of the ethics of SRM is necessary before it will be possible to make fair and just decisions about whether (or how) to proceed. This book, including essays by 13 experts in the field of ethics of geoengineering, is intended to go some distance towards providing that treatment.
